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9 Xprint V7.0 for Windows
9.1 Approach
Xprint V7.0 for Windows is the port of Xprint V7.0 (UNIX) to the Windows Server
platform. It brings the rich functionality of Xprint V7.0 as a print server to the PC
world and co-exists amiably with the native Windows spooler.
Xprint V7.0 on Windows is not a complete rewrite of Xprint V7.0. It is delivered
with a run-time environment that allows UNIX applications to run on Windows
NT or Windows 2000. Only the graphical Xprint V7.0 management interface
Mercator has been rewritten to look like a standard Windows application.
The architecture is identical to the architecture of Xprint V7.0 on UNIX: server
and supervisors can be defined independently, gateways can be configured for
interdomain printing, and an Xprint V7.0 daemon and database manager run
during the Xprint V7.0 session.
This approach simplifies the integration of the Windows computers into an
existing Xprint V7.0/UNIX configuration: a Windows print server can be added
in an Xprint V7.0 domain exactly like a plain UNIX host. Windows computers
can be defined as potential masters or slaves, and the whole domain can still
be administered from a single point (UNIX or Windows). For the daily Xprint
V7.0 management tasks, the print system administrator does not even need to
know which hosts are UNIX and which Windows. The type of platform hosting
the print server is also totally transparent to the end users and the applications
submitting print requests.
For Windows users printing from graphical applications (word processors,
spreadsheets,...) Wprint can be used to route the print jobs to Xprint V7.0, with
the optional possibility of specifying Xprint V7.0 job parameters or setting
default ones. The full set of Xprint V7.0 commands is also available on Windows
and can be called from a DOS shell window. The xpadd command, for example,
can still be used to print a pre-formatted file received by mail.